CHAPTER FOUR

Jeo

 

“Hey, Jeo, what are you doing here so early?”

I looked up from my pile of paperwork. Nathan, a resident at Rainbow House, stood next to my desk looking uncertain. I knew he was having trouble fitting in, so I smiled encouragingly.

“Hey, man. I live here now. Didn’t you hear? Got my stuff moved in last week.”

Nathan’s eyes widened. “Really?”

I nodded. “The apartment upstairs. This way I can keep an eye on things, and Gabe won’t have to come over at weird hours.” Located in the Bronx, the center was close to a forty minute drive from where Gabe lived in Hackensack, and until he’d asked me if I was interested in living there, Gabe had gone through a series of night-shift managers who hadn’t worked out very well. Some stole from the center, others made residents uncomfortable. But they knew me, and I was honest.

“Oh, that’s cool.” Nathan said.

“How’s it been going? You find a job yet?”

Part of what I enjoyed about working at Rainbow House was meeting the young people who stayed there and helping them get on their feet. I couldn’t blame the guys at the clubhouse for assuming I’d been out messing around—it’s what I’d done for years—but it had been important for me to find myself before letting them in on it. The day after I had announced I was moving out, Tony had pulled me aside, looking for the world like someone had kicked his puppy, and apologized for every single time he’d razzed me on the subject. I’d rolled my eyes and gotten him in a headlock, knuckling his scalp until he swore he was going to burn my collection of first edition nudie mags if I didn’t stop.

Soon after that, Blaze had called me over to his office in the warehouse, and we’d had a long talk about why I was moving out. I thought he’d been afraid I was feeling ostracized since he’d banned me from having hook-ups at the clubhouse. I had assured him that wasn’t the case, and that he’d actually done me a favor by making the rule. It had forced me to leave the cocoon I’d created. I had promised him as well as myself that I wasn’t going to let this move put a wedge between me and my club.

Nathan’s normally serious face brightened when I mentioned a job. “Actually, yeah. I’m working part time at the coffee shop down the street from here. They said it would eventually turn full-time.”

“That’s great! I guess that application must have looked good, then.”

“Yeah. Thanks for helping me out with that.”

“No problem. Let me know if there’s anything else you need. I’m here to help.”

Nathan thanked me again and wandered off, and I got back to going through the list of supplies we needed. Recently, Gabe had asked me for ideas for a fundraiser for the center, which was now nearly full to capacity, and I had that on my mind as well.

The front door opened and Ellis—whose first name was Janet, but she hated it—walked in.

“Hey, Jeo,” she said. She was wearing her uniform and smelled like fried chicken, so I assumed she’d just gotten off work at the fast food restaurant.

“Hey,” I greeted her. “Things going good?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“You look a little down in the dumps.”

She examined her bitten-off fingernails. “I asked this girl out I like, and she turned me down. I’m honestly not sure she’s into girls.”

“It’s hard to know,” I said. “Nothing wrong with asking though.”

She nodded. “At least I can tell myself that’s why she said no instead of that she just didn’t like me.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t it,” I said.

Ellis waved and continued to the stairs.

My phone rang, and, seeing Tony’s name on the screen, I answered.

“Lunch?” he asked.

“Not going out with lover boy?” I teased.

“He’s got a meeting.”

“What about Nick?”

“You act like you think you’re my last resort.”

“You said it, not me. Listen, if this is about you being worried about me, you can save it. I’m fine.”

“Fuck, Jeo, I just want company for lunch. Meet me at the Italian place on 7th Street. Thirty minutes?”

My stomach growled at the suggestion, and I checked the time. “Okay.”

I wrapped up what I was doing and rode my hog to Russo’s, pleased to find a parking space in front. I stuffed some coins in the meter and strolled inside.

Knowing me well, Tony had already secured us a booth by the window where I could keep an eye on my bike. I sat across from him, thinking, not for the first time, how angelic he looked with his blond curls and blue eyes. Just to bug him, I told him so, and he made a face.

“Right. Then may I say you look like the devil, dressed all in black with that sexy smirk on your face? Although you probably don’t have a problem with that comparison.”

My brows went up and I put my hand on my chest. “You think I’m sexy? T, what about Cane? He might go back to his old surly disposition if you dump him for me.”

His foot connected with my shin.

“Ow! What, they make snazzy dress shoes with steel toes now? Fuck, I’m gonna bruise,” I groused, rubbing my leg under the table.

“Who cares if you bruise? Unless you’re planning on doing more porn scenes,” Tony said.

“Not planning on doing more. I was just trying to help out Blaze.”

“How’d that go? The scene with Seb, I mean.”

“Good,” I said. “It went up on the site earlier today. Be sure to watch it. I was sexier than ever.”

Tony made a face. “I saw enough of your naked ass when I shared a room with you. Seb do okay?”

“Afraid watching it will make it harder to go home to the man in your bed? And, yeah, he’s a born sub. I just hope Blaze can line up some tops. I’m not interested in doing more porn.” I wasn’t kidding; it had lost its appeal a long time ago, although I wasn’t sorry for having done that scene. It had opened my eyes to the fact I enjoyed playing Daddy and had got me thinking even more about Nick and scratching that itch. Plus, getting some head had quieted the burning need seeing Nick had struck in me.

“I’m perfectly happy with who I’ve got in my bed,” Tony said. “You really happy working at Rainbow House?”

I tensed. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“No. I just wondered. Cut me some slack, Jeo. I only found out about this last week. You’ve been pretty tight-lipped for the past year. How come you didn’t at least tell me what was going on?”

I relaxed and shrugged. “I just wanted to try out something new. I didn’t know I’d like it so much.” Sorry I’d snapped at him, I told Tony a little about the place, describing some of the residents and their situations.

“Had you really been calling Nick to apologize about Royce?” Tony changed the subject after our food arrived and we’d dug in.

“What else would I be calling him for? I gave up after the dozenth call went to voicemail.” I licked cheese and marinara from my lips. Russo’s lasagna was the best. “Suggesting Royce be the mole made sense. I hadn’t meant to get the guy beaten to within an inch of his life though, so I thought I’d be nice and apologize.” I took a long pull from my beer. “Where is the little diva today, anyway?”

“He took the day off. He’s been seeing someone new—met the guy at Lux, I think. They went to a baseball game.”

I tensed. ”This the guy who hurt him?”

“I highly doubt it. Nick can take care of himself.”

I grunted and changed the subject to Foghorn and Cupcake, who had gotten into a fight, sending Cupcake to her parents’ house for a week, at which point Foghorn had lit up all our phones with his drunken whining. They were back together now, thank God. While we ate, I kept Tony in stitches reading some of the texts to him in an imitation of Foghorn’s deep voice.

I gave Tony a ride back to Winters Corporation and walked him upstairs just to say hi to Cane and have a look around. What Bruder had done to Tony a few months ago had scared the Bejeezus out of me and brought home the fact that any of my brothers could have been killed that night. They were my family, and I owed them a lot. Now that I was more settled, I could see how worried they’d been about me over the past year while I’d been so close-mouthed, and I wanted to make up for it.

I hadn’t seen Winters Corporation since just after Cane had taken over the building from his cousin. He and Tony had made some renovations, creating more modern office space while adding several luxury apartments on the eighth and ninth floors with a separate, private elevator for future residents.

“You’ve come up in the world, T,” I teased him.

“Sometimes it feels like a dream,” he said, grinning boyishly. I yanked him into a brotherly hug just as the elevator doors opened onto the executive floor with a glorious view of the city. It was good seeing him so happy; he deserved it.

“Hey, get off my man,” Cane’s deep voice came from the right, where he was riffling through papers on a desk I would bet my right nut belonged to Nick, what with all the colorful accessories and the Tom Daily swimsuit calendar hanging on the wall beside it.

Cane opened his arms to Tony, who laid an R-rated kiss on him before heading for Cane’s office with the bag of food he’d brought him.

“I like what you’ve done with the place,” I said to Cane.

Cane smiled. “Thanks. It’s been a lot of work, but I’m satisfied with it.” He circled the desk and began sifting through the papers on the other side. “Now if I could just find the proposal I was supposed to sign.”

“Why don’t you text Nick?” I asked the obvious question.

“He never takes a day off. And I hate to bug him when he’s on a date.”

“Wow, I want you for a boss,” I said just as the elevator doors whooshed open again, and the man himself charged into the room. He wore a pair of slim navy blue pants with a red stripe going up the side of the leg, a solid white T-shirt, and white sneakers. He’d tucked his dark hair under a Yankees cap, and his blue eyes were stormy beneath the brim.

“What are you doing here?” Cane asked Nick. “I gave you the day off.”

Tony came out of his office, looking at his watch. “The game couldn’t be over yet.”

“It’s not. I left.” Nick stormed over to his desk and sat down in the cushioned chair, barely giving me a nod hello. He pulled a thin stack of papers from one of numerous trays and waved it at Cane. “Haven’t you signed these yet? I need to mail them.”

Cane took the stack from Nick’s hand. “I was just looking for those.” He plucked the gold pen out of Nick’s fingers and signed the top paper.

“There’s one at the bottom too,” Nick told him when Cane would have handed them back. Cane signed that one too.

“Come eat, Cane,” Tony said, then looked at me. “See you later.” They walked into Cane’s office and shut the door, leaving me with a moody Nick.

“Great,” Nick huffed. “They’ll probably fuck in there.”

I looked around the empty office space. “So? Nobody comes up here, do they?” I knew all the meeting rooms were on another floor.

Nick rolled his eyes at me. “Of course you wouldn’t care.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Nick shrugged. “Nothing.”

“What’s got you in such a snit? Your Daddy wouldn’t buy you a hot dog at the game?”

“Fuck you, Jeovanni.”

I grinned, liking the sound of my name on his lips. I think I liked the way his chest rose and fell in anger even more. If I wasn’t careful, though, he’d start shouting at me, so I headed for the elevators. “See ya, little diva.”

A stream of curse words followed me into the elevator followed by the thud of something hitting the doors after they closed. I whistled all the way back to Rainbow House.